Whispers Under Ground

popped the manhole cover and bid us to help ourselves.
    Nightingale went down first, then the officers from CO19. I followed them down with Zach behind me while Lesley and Reynolds brought up the rear. I recognised where we were the moment I got off the ladder. It was the same intersection we’d reached before an unknown assailant with a Sten gun had driven us over the duckboard and tumbling down the weir, and on our way to Olympia and Chelsea’s underground rave. Then it had been a raging torrent. This time it was merely damp and surprisingly fragrant, at least by the standards of London sewers.
    Kumar was waiting for us.
    ‘You just couldn’t stay away,’ I said.
    ‘It’s warmer down here,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised you came down at all.’
    So was I, to be honest, I hadn’t wanted to go down the manhole, but once I’d made myself do it I was all right. It helped that I was surrounded by people I trusted. As Conan the Barbarian famously said, That which does not kill us does not kill us .
    ‘Where to now?’ I asked Zach.
    He gestured down towards what I now knew was the North Kensington Relief sewer, far too low-ceilinged to walk along upright. The CO19 guys, who were understandably thrilled to be heading down a long straight pipe, wanted to wait until they’d fetched up a set of ballistic shields. But Nightingale waved them back.
    ‘We’ll do a recce first,’ he said and gestured me and Zach to go with him. The CO19 officers gave us pitying looks as we followed Nightingale into the tunnel. Now, I have allergic reaction to getting out in front of armed officers, but Zach didn’t seem bothered. Either he wasn’t expecting trouble or he had more faith in Nightingale than I did.
    We made our way down the tunnel for about twenty metres when Zach told us to stop.
    ‘We’ve gone past it,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
    We backed up two metres while Zach banged his fist at regular intervals on the left side of the tunnel. He stopped suddenly and banged the same spot a few times.
    ‘This feels like it,’ he said.
    I put my hand on the wall where he’d smacked it. There was definitely something like a flash of an open oven and that hint of the pigsty – although given that we were in a sewer that might have been from elsewhere.
    Nightingale put his hand next to mine.
    ‘Extraordinary,’ he said. ‘How do we get in?’
    ‘Like so,’ said Zach and, turning, put his back against the wall. Then, bracing one foot on the opposite wall, he pushed backwards, forcing a section of the wall to retreat into a recess. The walls were smooth and coated with the same ceramic finish I recognised from the fruit bowl. There was a dull click and the section behind Zach locked into place.
    ‘Not bad huh?’ he said and pointed upwards. Above him was an open hatch into darkness. ‘It’s like a fire door so it closes automatically. Someone needs to hold it open while I climb up.’
    Nightingale lifted his hand and made a small gesture and the movable bit of wall shifted slightly and clicked. Zach gingerly shifted his shoulders.
    ‘Or you could do that,’ he said.
    Nightingale called along the drain for the rest of the party to come up, leaving two of the CO19 officers to guard the junction and two more to man the tunnel. Then he swarmed up through the hatch and, turning, reached down to help me up behind him.
    I had a look around while Zach and Lesley followed us up. We were in a space with the mean dimensions of a living room in a council flat, although the ceiling was low even by those standards. Low enough for me to scrape my helmet if I didn’t watch it.
    ‘Watch your head, darling,’ Zach told Lesley as she came up.
    At first I thought the walls were panelled with dark wood in the Victorian fashion, but I quickly realised that the colour was wrong, too pale. When I rapped the panels with my knuckles there was the unmistakable ring of ceramic. But when I brushed them with my fingertips I felt wood grain, and mingled with that was tobacco smoke, beer and whisky. I looked at Nightingale, who was frowning as he too touched the wall. He caught me looking and nodded. The air was still, musty and dry.
    ‘We need to get on,’ he said and what with Kumar, Reynolds and the last two CO19 officers it was getting a bit tight in there. There was only one exit, a doorway framed with more fake ceramic wood.
    Like the well behaved coppers we were, we let the CO19 officers go first. After all, there’s really no point